One of the easiest ways to “jack up the raw” in your diet — besides adding Live Green Smoothies at every opportunity — is to get handy with making Salad Sandwiches (which I always wanna write “sammich”, but am making a concession here to Google).

One of the fastest, easiest Salad Sandwich combos ever is the AOT… with avocado, red onion, and fresh juicy tomato!

If you want to make a “totally raw” sammich, then use a bread or sturdy cracker made from sprouted, dehydrated seeds. But for many, that is not convenient, in which case my recommendation is to make sure you always have a bag of Ezekiel bread in your freezer. It is bread made not from traditional flour, but from sprouted grains, and it makes absolutely the most delicious toast — it has a nutty flavor and a crunchy-tender, sturdy texture that stands up great to dressings.

Ezekiel bread is a radical nutritional improvement over sandwich bread (including whole-grain breads), and tastes much better when toasted. You can buy it in your grocery’s freezer section.

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The Importance of Quality Ingredients

This recipe is based on simplicity and quality. In fact, most of my kitchen creations are… I’m not into fiddly food prep or culinary trickery, and instead place much more importance on simple, quality ingredients. When they are well-seasoned, they are deeply pleasurable, not to mention more beautiful and healthful.

The Avocado

Choose a medium-firm to soft avocado for your sandwiches. You want it to be soft enough to meld nicely into the other ingredients, without necessary becoming a mush.

The Red Onion

Make sure you use red onion with this recipe — besides being prettier, red onions are sweeter. When you shop for them, pick the smallest ones you can find — in this case, smaller is better. They tend to have a more delicate flavor.

The Tomato

Spend a few extra pennies and get the best organic tomato in the store. When you pick out your tomatoes, appearance doesn’t matter, smell does. Smell the stem area of the tomato and pick the one that has the most pungent odor of “tomato”.

There’s no point in making this sandwich if all you’ve got are the tasteless, mealy, squidgy excuses-for-tomatoes commonly sold in the supermarket. Treat yourself to a juicy, dribbly, brightly-colored tomato that can really convince you it’s the fruit originally called “The Love Apple”!

The Salt

No white table salt here. In fact, just get that stuff out of your kitchen and relegate it to the sidewalks when they ice up. Invest in a good Celtic sea salt at the very least, or a nice bag of Himalayan Crystal salt or one of the many other natural salts on the planet that haven’t been demineralized. Your body — and your taste buds — will thank you.

The Olive Oil

Cold-pressed, extra-virgin olive oil. ‘Nuff said.

The Black Pepper

A pepper mill isn’t expensive. If you don’t have one, add it to your shopping list for the next time you get paid…and be sure to pick up some black peppercorns. They’re cheaper when purchased out of the bulk section of your health food store. There is no comparison between freshly ground black pepper and the grey dust poured out of grocery tins. p

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How to Make an AOT Salad Sandwich

• 2 slices Ezekiel bread, plain or sesame
• 1 avocado, sliced
• 1 small tomato, sliced
• thinly sliced red onion
• squirt of fresh lemon or lime juice
• 1 tablespoon cold-pressed olive oil
• quality non-white salt (usually Himalayan Crystal salt in my kitchen)
• fresh-ground black pepper

Layer the sliced avocado on one slice of Ezekiel toast. Top with the tomato slices, and place the red onion over the tomato with a nice little artistic flourish. Squirt the lemon or lime juice over the whole business, drizzle with the olive oil, and sprinkle very generously with the quality salt and black pepper.

Don’t worry about spillage over the edges of the sandwich. Salad Sandwiches are delicious, but messy — just eat the rest with a fork or some chips, such as raw dehydrated vedge chips or organic corn tortilla chips. Whether you eat the sandwich open-face or covered and sliced, enjoy… and make sure you have plenty of napkins near by!